Finding Comfort
by Mika-chan
Summary: Blaine has a nightmare, rattling him enough to phone the one person he thinks is still willing to answer his call.


**Author's Note: **Set between episode 404 (The Break Up) and 408 (Thanksgiving).

* * *

Blaine startles awake, his breath coming out in large, shuddering gasps. He lays there chest heaving and hands fisting his comforter until his eyes gradually make out the familiar contents of his room. He shakily pushes himself upright until his back presses firmly against the upholstered headboard of his bed. His knees instinctively bend close to his chest causing his plaid comforter to pool around his bare feet, and he wipes a shaky hand across his eyes. He tries to steady his uneven breathing, but harsh yells still echo loudly in his ears and phantom pains pulse relentlessly across his left wrist and belly that he chokes on his next inhale.

He reaches for his phone, fingers automatically keying in his passcode and pressing and swiping until Kurt's face is smiling up at him. He's a heartbeat away from pressing call when he stops himself at the very last moment, remembering suddenly that he isn't allowed to call Kurt anymore—that he doesn't have a boyfriend—and the dull ache that has followed him ever since New York returns tenfold compounding with the lingering effects of his nightmare and he drops his phone as if it were lit on fire.

Blaine lets his forehead fall against his bent knees, tears squeezing past his shut eyes in a steady stream. For some time, the only sound that can be heard is his choked gasps, and in the stillness of his house, it reminds him too much of that night. Quiet crying and hitching breaths and thoughts of why, why, _why_.

His phone is in his hand again and despite how his body shudders every so often and how his vision is so blurry, he manages to press the right buttons and holds the phone to his ear. With his forehead still leaning against his knees, he listens as the phone rings once, twice, and then three times and he worries that he won't pick up. That he really is alone and he doesn't want to be and that nothing he does is ever right and

"Blaine. Hey! Blaine!"

The voice eventually penetrates through Blaine's thoughts and relief immediately pours into his body, bolstering him up momentarily before his shoulders sag once more. "Coop," he says voice barely above a whisper, and he hears a relieved sigh on the other end.

"Blaine. You scared the shit out of me. What's...What's wrong? Are you okay?"

His brother sounds extremely worried and it suddenly hits Blaine that he's calling his brother because he's had a nightmare. It's beyond ridiculous—he isn't five anymore—and a wave of embarrassment sweeps up and against the lump that's already lodged in his throat and he doesn't know what to say.

"Blaine?"

The anxiousness in Cooper's tone spurs Blaine to say something. "I—Sorry," he apologizes, haltingly. "I didn't." He sniffs unintentionally and noisily and glances over to his alarm clock to see that it's half past two in the morning. "It's late," he says. "I—"

"Blaine, are you all right?" Cooper cuts in, his voice as serious as Blaine has ever heard him and he finds himself nodding reflexively before realizing his brother can't see him.

"Yes," he replies hoarsely, cringes at the sound, and clears his throat. "Yes," he repeats in a softer tone. "Sorry, I." He scrubs his sleeve over his damp eyes and then his nose a few times, sucks in a shaky breath and releases it slowly before continuing in what he hopes to be a normal voice, "It's nothing. Did I wake you up?"

"Did you..." Cooper's voice trails off before he gives a startled laugh. "No. No, I'm at a friend's having some drinks. It's fine." A pause. "Are you _sure_ you're all right?" Cooper asks again, and Blaine hums an affirmative, his shoulders pulled taut, and he starts picking restlessly at his blanket.

Several beats of silence pass and Blaine knows he should hang up, that it's rude of him to pull Cooper away from his friends when there's _nothing wrong_, but he can't quite make himself do it yet.

"Are Mom and Dad all right?" Cooper finally asks, and Blaine exhales a breath he isn't aware of holding.

"Yeah," he replies, sitting up a bit and tilting his head back against his headboard. "They called last night. Said they'd be back on Saturday."

"Huh. That's short for them."

"Yeah," Blaine agrees, the customary discussion of his parents whereabouts doing a surprisingly good job of settling his nerves and rapidly beating heart. Unfortunately, the conversation stutters to a halt again after that.

"So," Cooper drags out the one syllable word in the ensuing silence, and Blaine feels a fissure in the calm he's slowly rebuilding. Cooper has always had a single-mindedness that rivaled the likes of Rachel Berry and if he didn't see how a situation benefited him, he is just as quick to dismiss it without a second thought. Still, within the last year his brother has gotten better in at least recognizing when Blaine needed him to listen, but given how tight-lipped he'd been tonight, Blaine doesn't think Cooper will stay on the line much longer. Not yet ready to let his brother go, Blaine blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

"How did your _Law & Order _audition go?"

"How did my _Law & Order_ audition go?" his brother echoes, and Blaine hunches his shoulders hoping Cooper would just go with it.

"Okay...I think," Cooper says his tone initially cautious before spewing in typical Cooper Anderson fashion a thorough one on one account of the entire experience.

Blaine gradually relaxes as he listens to his brother expound on the other people auditioning. What they wore and how he thinks they did and what happened at the first call back and then the second and finally what the casting director said to him directly. Blaine listens mostly with half an ear, letting the exploits of his brother wash over him in soothing waves.

"That...that sounds promising," Blaine says when Cooper pauses to take a breath, and when Cooper replies with "Was there any doubt?", Blaine can picture with perfect clarity his brother's confident smile and how his head would be tilted just so. The image is familiar and inexplicably comforting.

He is about to tell his brother that there may have been a little doubt just to mess with him when he yawns loudly. At Cooper's responding laugh, Blaine feels the last thread of tension coiled tightly around his stomach loosen and fade away.

"It's late, little brother. You should get some rest."

Blaine nods, body sliding down until he's lying properly on his back again with his head on his pillow. He curls his body to the right so his phone is still pressed to his ear and mumbles a "Thanks, Coop."

"Anytime, Blaine. Night!"

Blaine doesn't remember if he responds, but when he wakes up the next morning, his hand is still wrapped loosely around his phone. There are four text messages on it; all from his brother.

From Coop:  
_Call me anytime. Day or night. I'll pick up.  
_

From Coop:_  
Well, except if I'm in the middle of an audition because that's just bad form.  
_

From Coop:_  
J/K! They don't let us use our cell phones at auditions :P  
_

From Coop:_  
Love you!_

Blaine shakes his head at his brother's antics, but finds himself smiling all the same. He types back a quick response, not caring if it woke up his brother or not, before hopping out of bed to start what had to be a better day than the last.


End file.
